2008 Detroit Autorama - Dazzled In Detroit

1/75J.F. Launier finished his '55 Chrysler two-door hardtop wagon just hours before it debuted at Detroit. The Hot Hues Revolution Yellow wagon started as a two-door sedan but now features a 2-inch chopped custom wagon roof with a laid-back windshield. A late-model Hilborn-injected Hemi resides under the hood. The judges liked the custom Chrysler as much as I did, and proved it by awarding it with a Great 8 award. Check out R&C in the near future for a full feature.

If you're building a show car and want to compete against the best there is, there's really no better place than the Detroit Autorama to bring it and see how you measure up.

The Ridler award has become one of the most coveted awards in the hot rod and custom car world. The unique thing about the Ridler is that it can be awarded to just about anything- the winner doesn't have to be a roadster, a custom, a hot rod, or anything else (one stipulation is that the car does have to be debuted at the Autorama).

This fact makes the field of hopefuls very diverse and exciting. Once the group is narrowed down to the Great 8, sponsored by Pirelli Tire this year, it's everyone for themselves as the judges go around and try to find the most minute detail that makes one better than the others.

The Autorama isn't all about show cars that will never see road time. Cobo Hall is filled with just about every kind of vehicle you can think of, and the basement where the Autorama Extreme has taken place the last couple of years is filled with plenty of rough-and-ready traditional hot rods.

I could go on and on about the virtues of this indoor car show, but instead I'll let the photos show what it's all about.

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R&C Top Tin PickI had a tough time narrowing it down when it came time for me to pick a car out of the crowd for the Rod & Custom Award, but I knew I had a winner once I got the full story on Charlie Gould's '26 T roadster pickup.

Charlie started gathering parts for his hot rod in the early 1990s, collecting the little Chevy four-banger, trans, and front suspension, but hadn't decided on the body style until he bought a '26 roadster pickup body in mid-1999. He ran across a photo of a track-style rpu in an old magazine and immediately dug out every magazine with a track roadster in his 50-year collection, finally settling on that style with a 109-inch wheelbase.

Charlie built the frame from C-channel, bent to his specs by a local sheetmetal shop. The engine was beefed up with 10:1 forged pistons, a Sig Erson cam, and a modified Weber intake from Clifford Research. An S-10 pickup gave up its rearend, which ended up with GM disc brakes, thanks to some careful swap meet searching.

The clutch and brake pedals swing from a sideways hanging Kugel unit. Charlie moved the clutch fork to the passenger side to free up some room in the driver-side footwell. A steel '32-style dash designed for a Model A was narrowed and filled with Classic Instruments gauges. The seat bottoms are late-model Camaro buckets sitting in custom tin buckets. Charlie built the pickup bed 2 inches taller than an original and somewhat shorter in length. The nose and insert started as a Superior Glass unit but was narrowed about 1 1/2 inches. The hood, hood sides, bellypans, and most of the flooring are custom-built from aluminum. Charlie wanted lots of louvers, so he ponied up and bought a louver press and punched the louvers himself. He says it was well-worth the purchase price. The wheels are 15x5s and 15x7s with '40 'caps and Coker 5.00s and 8.20s. The headlights are '35-37 commercial units and the taillights are '50s F-100s.

For a little piece of mind, Charlie borrowed a tubing bender from a pal and built the bolt-in rollbar to fit. Charlie told us, "This car is crotch high at the cowl and bellybutton high at the windshield, and could easily be stuffed under a semi trailer. Whether it would hold up or not is moot. I just feel better about it."